


I've never felt much smaller

by implodingpotato



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Second Person, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22068949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/implodingpotato/pseuds/implodingpotato
Summary: He’s telling you goodbye, you think, but you have no words to give him.
Relationships: Kusanagi Izumo/Suoh Mikoto
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	I've never felt much smaller

**Author's Note:**

> new year, old fic. this is from 2014, which might as well be from a different universe, but here we all are.

“I won’t say things like ‘It will all work out somehow,’” you tell his retreating back for the second time since the funeral and get a twisted half-smile in response. You wonder if the phrase feels the same to him as it does to you now, a heavy weight in your stomach and the taste of ashes in your mouth.

You deeply regret saying it now, even as a warning, you're choking on the scent of blood and gunpowder that hasn’t left you even though you’ve scrubbed your hands a dozen times. The words aren’t yours to say, they’re a reminder that everything is wrongwrongwrong, from the silence in the bar to the star-filled night sky outside far too beautiful to be marking the violent end to the life that you had built for yourself over the past eight years.

You can’t stomach the thought of going home to your empty apartment right now so you follow him upstairs to where he’s sitting onto the tiny couch in the tiny room that you gave him five years ago, holding a cigarette. You collapse wordlessly next to him, fumbling in your pocket until you find your own pack. You don’t realize that your hands are shaking until you try and light one. He reaches over and does it for you with a careless snap of his fingers.

Once upon a time you might have scolded him for such a trivial use of his power, but you can’t find the strength to care anymore. Every last scrap of energy has been drawn away, leaving you with nothing but a tiredness that permeates your very bones. He feels the same, you know, the lines beneath his eyes that have been present ever since you met him deepened to dark slashes, like cuts from a blade.

He says your name questioningly, and you realize that you’re completely lying against him now. You forget that he is younger than you when he’s like this, his normal lethargy completely subsumed by the edge of danger crackling just beneath his skin. His flame could never burn you, of course, but you don’t need the powers of the former Seventh King to know that he will end up causing you an even worse pain, and soon.

You can tell that he knows this as well just by the way that he says your name; he might place little stock in words but after spending a third of your lives together, reading him is second-nature. There's regret there, and guilt, for what's to come. You can't take any solace from it.

His fingers have moved to the hem of your shirt and there’s another query there, one that you answer by removing the garment in question, welcoming the brush of his fingers and mouth against your back. His teeth graze the flame symbol on your right shoulder blade and you almost laugh, unsurprised that he’s seeking out the mark that he gave you, if only as reassurance that you at least are still here with him.

You want to tell him that you’ve been his for far longer than that you’ve borne the sign of his power. You want to leave some kind of mark on him in return; you want, so desperately _want_ , to tell the world that it can’t take him because he’s yours.

You want to do all of these things, but as you look back at him your eyes are drawn to the faint red gleam of his earring and the taste of ash fills your mouth again. Ash and bone and blood, the memory of a bright smile and an old guitar, a video camera and a clear night sky. The tattoo burning on your back and the body lying on the rooftop as a smirking boy with a smoking gun laughs and laughs and laughs.

It’s too much to bear so you twist around and kiss your king, trying to replace the blood-ash dread that won’t leave you with his clean-fire taste, because you’re twenty-six years old and it feels like it’s the end of the world and he’s all you have left.

“I’m going to return the favor,” he says quietly, and for the briefest of instances he’s not a king, just the boy you met in high school. His fingers are resting over your heart now and they are far too warm, even for him.

He’s telling you goodbye, you think, but you have no words to give him, either of permission or forgiveness. You meet his eyes and realize that you were wrong before: the end of the world has come and gone already and all that is left is the inferno.

**Author's Note:**

> look, if I still have to think about this ship in 2020 then so do you. 
> 
> title from C'mon by PATD because of course that's what I was listening to while thinking about these disasters 6 gd years ago.


End file.
